Topics - death metal black metal

Far away from the cityFar away from civilizationA secret farm full of obscure personsAnd full of weak cattle existsEvery morning the farm fatherSatisfied himself with the cattleSodomize the weak creaturesFatigo, it's an ever flowing plagueNo escape from the penis of deadNo hope for all the dead chicksCrucio, the same procedure everydayThe same thing the whole nightSometimes, when travelers enter the farmThey won't return from those pervert peopleGet strangulated by the evil farmersGet buried somewhere in the desert around

You only get a single chanceThe rules are very plain,The truth is well concealed insideThe details of the game,You can hear it coming,You can see it from afar,It's pale and it glimmersLike a faded movie star

And out there in the castle,They're trying to make her scream,By sticking thumb tacks in her fleshAnd cancelling her dreamsCan you find the Valium,Can you bring them soon,Lost Johnny's out there,Baying at the moon

The time has come for you to choose,You'd better get it right,Smiling girls with sharp white teethAre waiting in the night,But you want to really get some,It surely can't be hard,There's always trouble lurkingWhen you leave your own backyard

Underneath the city,The alligators sing,Of how the fool he cannot dance,Since someone cuts the strings,Can you find the morphine,Try to be so brief,Lost Johnny's out there,Looking for relief

That laddie looks so evil,And you know he really tries,But every time he makes a play,That vital number dies,And Sally buys her underwear,From a store where no-one goes,She makes it big in photographs,On the strength of what she shows,

And here inside the waiting room,The radio still screams,And we're shooting children,To murder all young things,Can you find your credit card,For god's sake make it quick,Lost Johnny's out there,Trying to turn a trick

We have come a long way since 1988, and so has publishing, including the part that happens on the internet.

For one thing, the internet is no longer the frontier. Now it is as mainstream as daytime TV in the 1980s. The audience is different, much bigger and much lower information.

In this new world, if we are going to have a voice for death metal, it first requires that we have a voice that others can hear and understand. That way, when we do speak up about death metal, people listen and get it.

On June 6th, Hessians worldwide come together to do something upon which we can all agree - listening to Slayer! Finally, one of the most dismissed cultural groups in the world has a holiday to call its own.

• Listen to Slayer at full blast in your car.• Listen to Slayer at full blast in your home.• Listen to Slayer at full blast at your place of employment.• Listen to Slayer at full blast in any public place you prefer.

For this year, check out a retrospective of classic Slayer through video and music, and a free download of 1985 bootleg "Captor of Sin."

The last real edge year for underground metal was 2009 when strong contenders and new voices united to defend extreme metal against the onslaught of imitators making Potemkin village metal from hipster flair and lite-jazz fireworks but underneath it, nothing but disorganized songwriting and an absence of something to express. As the underground has come back with a vengeance, it has begun to displace the imitators because their music simply does not measure up. This has created a backlash as the hipsters defend their territory with guilt, ostentation, pretense and surface-level novelty. On the other hand, the underground has produced some strong contenders.

#metalgate is happening. It started when metalheads pushed back against people who are well-placed in media, academia and the record industry who are inserting music with a "social justice" message in replacement for real metal wherever they go. They hate real metal because it does not reflect their ideology, even where it is uncritical or semi-supportive of that ideology. That is because metal is masculine, anarchic and warlike instead of being passive, herd-oriented and feminized.

Metal is not the first place this invasion by ideological zombies has occurred:

Metalgate is not about whether or not you agree with these people. It is about keeping metal free from censorship, even the kind done by small groups of fanatics independent of government. 21st century authoritarianism works by having the hive-mind gang up on an idea and bully it out of existence by threatening those who do not conform to what the herd wants. Metal stands against this. Do you stand for metal?

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Metal is still dogged by the issues that arise from its deep-seated conservative values, but thanks to an increase in conversations about racism, politics, and feminism, those on the right side of history have gained solid ground.

"For years people have tried to make metal more sociable. They first tried in the mid-1970s when they mixed Black Sabbath with Led Zeppelin and produced hard rock, hoping that they could sell it to more people. 'Sociable' sells. Then they tried in the 1980s with rap/rock, funk metal and other abominations. Finally they hit on nu-metal but that turned into an extended conversation about the impact of child molestation. And then, during the early 2000s, they rolled out a metal/hardcore fusion that had sociable lyrics like hardcore punk has for many years."

Social Totalitarianism and Censorship

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From the knuckle-dragging morons who brought you ‪#‎gamergate‬ comes ‪#‎metalgate‬, a so-called "movement" which alleges that Social Justice Warriors (SJWs) are attacking metal to cleanse it of everything that makes it angry, misogynystic, homophobic music for conservative white people.

Self-censorship is the worst form of censorship, for it encourages people to internalise illiberalism. It plants a secret censor in every boardroom and newsroom and gallery and even in people’s minds — an invisible tut-tutter constantly warning us ‘don’t say that’ and ‘don’t show that’ because, in the words of Index on Censorship, there’s ‘the possibility of a hostile response’. It nurtures risk-aversion, even moral cowardice, and it discourages people from taking great leaps of the mind or pushing culture in a new and provocative direction. It stultifies the soul. It hampers the human spirit itself. And worst of all, it inflames the intolerant: the more people self-censor, the more the censorious will demand it, whether it’s Oxford students, Guardian feminists, or foreign tyrants. If Guardians of Peace really is North Korea, then that shows that the West has become so allergic to liberty that even that tyrannical hermit state is taking lessons from us, borrowing from our book of using online intimidation to make offensive speakers apologise and retract.

Videogames are too violent! Pop music is degrading to women! Filmmakers are pushing ‘the wrong kind of message’! Over the past 12 months these have been the rallying cries of the cultural elite. And it’s shocking how seriously this spew has been taken. Hadn’t we settled all this? People aren’t stupid. Art isn’t ‘corrupting’. We can handle it, thanks. But now it seems the cultural sphere has been flux-capacitored back to the 1980s. Sex-and-violence panics about film, TV, pop music and videogames – dolled up in modern ‘progressive’ moralism – were all the rage in 2014.

The funny thing about the ‪#‎metalgate‬ crowd (I don't view it as an actual movement, just fringe whiners) is the fact that there is nothing that effectively keeps women or LGBTs out of the genre. Rob Halford is gay, Euronymous was gay (RIP), Gaahl is gay, the list goes on. These are respected metal musicians who happen to be homosexual, and they weren't debilitated by so-called "prejudice" in the metal community. The only thing is, I don't like the idea of metal being used as a vehicle for something as superficial and politically-motivated as social justice. It blights its imaginative spirit and degrades it to protest music level.

“Tumblr is kind of like a gateway drug for activism,” said Philip Howard, 44, the principal investigator at the Digital Activism Research Project at the University of Washington. “Once you connect to other people who feel strongly about race or crime or gay marriage, you stay engaged on that one issue area.”

...Ms. Bailey said that many people describe what they do on Tumblr as getting an education on topics that aren’t explored deeply in standard school textbooks, like African-American history or colonialism.

...“One fault of social media is that it has people thinking that’s all you have to do,” she said.

The point of this is to put together a list of all the stuff someone might have missed had they stopped paying attention to underground metal as the collapse hit. This might make a good shopping list or starter place for someone trying to find the highlights. Contributions appreciated, if they're on the level of the stuff here.